Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-09-23
THE W0MAN'S BATE IN PERSIA,
She Smokes and Gossips While Her Hair
C.Io,..lI ..-I4x. Ir...<...

The bath takes up a good deal of the
time of all Persian women. Even the
poorest will attend the Hamman at least
once week, says the St. james Gdzeue,
For the lady the bath is one of the serious
affairs of life, and takes up daily from two
to four hours 1t is something more than
our idea of bath. The victim is scraped
and rubbed and parboiled. The soles OF
the feet are punched until they are soft
and tender as those of little child. The
hair is thoroughly washed by means of
hot water and saponaceous clay for which
Shiraz is celebrated.
Then the attendants mix in brazen
bowl the aromatic henna with the re-
quisite amount of lemon juice, till brown
paste Of the consistency Of cruel is pro-
dnced, and several handfuls of the repul-
sive-looking compound are smeared over
the lady's head. Then the hair. collected
into mass, is bound up in cabbage leaves.
Small quantities of the dye are smeared
over the eyebrows, the soles of the feet.
the toes, the palms of the hands, and the
finger-tips are also covered with it. And
now the lady has to sit perfectly still for
from one to three hours, till, like meer-
schaum pipe, she colors; and it is exactly
the color obtained on the best specimen of
pipes that is most fashionable among the
Persian ladies. Day after day the bath is
thronged with women, each sitting per-
fectly still for the color to take" But
they have their reward, for the henna DIVES
the hair a beautiful deep warm chestnut :;
hence gray hair is unknown among Per-
iansladies.
While the coloring process has been GO
ing ON tongues have been running and
good deal Of scandal has been exchanged.
The female barber with pair of tweezers
has removed every outlying hair from the
region Of the lady's eyebrows. 1t is the
ambition of every Persian woman that her
eyebrows shall meet, or at least appear to
do so. So attractive are eyebrows that
meet that they are called the "bridge of
love-" The first care, then, of the Per-
sian beauty is with a little pencil of anti
mony to unite her eyebrows, and then she
proceeds to make them appear of unnat-
ural thickness; her eyelashes are penciled.
too in manner not unknown to our coun-
trywomen. By this time the lady will
have smoked many kalians or water pipes
she will have partaken of tea, and regaIed
herself with coffee; iced sherberts, too.
viii not have been wanting. Her finger
tips, nails and palms, as well as the soles
of her feet and her roes have attained
bright chestnut hue, which will last a
week. The hair is carefully washed once
more. 1t is seldom under yard long,
often much more, for the Persion woman
never cuts her hair, except in 'front.' per-
haps, when two heavy forelocks are left on
either side of the face The ladies now
return home to their MONDAY breakfasts.
After breakfast there is generally siesta,
and this in a hot country is almost neces-
sity. About o'clock tea and pipes ap-
pear, and then the lady receives callers or
pays visits, or perhaps does little shop
ping or takes the air mounted on her
ambling mule or a donkey of snowy white
ness.